


Morning Phantom

by Young_Rouge_Rose



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexuality, Comfort, Depression, Domestic, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Extended Metaphors, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gothic, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Realism, Meet the Family, One Shot, Phanfiction, Poetic, Psychological Horror, References to Depression, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 07:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12452730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Young_Rouge_Rose/pseuds/Young_Rouge_Rose
Summary: 'The thing about depression and falling in love is that, no matter what shitty Hollywood films tell you, one doesn’t cancel the other out. They are two different beasts that consume altogether different food and therefore, somehow have learned to live within Dan’s chest in harmony.'A story spanning the length of one October, where Dan and Phil take a trip to Dan's old family home. There Dan is forced to confront the demons of his past in the form of depression, and a child dressed as a ghost in pale white sheets. Phil is left trying to fit together pieces of a very confusing puzzle





	Morning Phantom

**_‘I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.’  
-Jack Kerouac_ **

**October 15 th **

It was October. The time was indistinct. The world was caught between the stages of sleeping and waking. Daniel James Howell was halfway through saying ‘I love you’, not from his lips but from his fingertips. He didn’t need to say it. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to say it. There just wasn’t any need. Phil Lester lay at his edges, the parts where Dan ended and Phil began. They weren’t typically the type for such sentimental intimacy, but something about the moment had seemed to thrust the feelings of longing upon them.

For the most part, they were quiet. Just breathing and looking one another over in the half-light, spilling from clumsily shut curtains. Maybe, Dan had thought a moment later, them being so quiet had something to do with their location, Dan’s family home. A visit that had been a long time coming, according to Dan’s mother.

It was his grandmother’s birthday, if it wasn’t Dan probably wouldn’t have come. His home life was shaky, not for any concrete reason. He had grown up comfortable enough, but comfortable didn’t mean happy. He spent most of his childhood teetering between pretending he didn’t exist and demanding others for attention. Whenever he got either it had never turned out like he intended. His childhood home didn’t exactly have happy memories. But his grandmother always had been there for him, so he supposed he owed her one. Even now she was his go to family member for moral support.

Phil tagged along because Dan asked. Dan couldn’t imagine coming without Phil. They weren’t co-dependent or at least they strived not to be. They had trips without one another, but Dan needed moral support, knowing full well he was about to be bombarded with questions about his work and love life which were often too hard to answer quickly or painlessly. Phil couldn’t do much to help but just having him there made things feel better.

Maybe these factors had culminated into this quiet moment. Dan couldn't remember a time before this where they had felt so intimate, not in a sexual way, in a way that defied words. His fingers quietly traced the other boy’s face, spattered with freckles from embracing the sun. Dan hadn’t said it aloud, but he liked Phil best with freckles. His face was always as pale as porcelain, an unblemished blank page. Dan loved this too, of course, but freckles were better. Dan was slowly tracing a spattering of them in the form of a broken constellation when the older boy finally speaks.

“It’s way too early for us to be awake,” Phil’s voice was deeper than usual, ridden with sleep. He didn’t have his glasses so he was squinting. Dan did a quiet favour and moved closer still. He really was blind.

“But it’s probably too late to go to sleep now.”

“It’s never too late to go to sleep.” 

Phil hasn’t had his morning coffee so he’s in one of his moods, his quiet and sulky stupors. People who don’t know Phil well enough always assume he has a constantly sunny disposition, but they had never met him in the mornings. Sometimes morning Phil was his favourite because he was closest to Dan’s pessimistic self, but he needed Phil’s sunny disposition. He lacked any of his own.

“What if I want to stay up and talk to you?” Dan challenged, trying to sort out Phil’s fringe.

“Then you can talk at me, while I sleep,” Phil compromised, his eyes sliding shut.

“Damn and I was about to tell you one of my embarrassing stories.” Phil barely moved.

“I’ve heard them all.”

“Not all, have I told you the time I fell face first down a hill and knocked over the first girl I ever had a crush on like a lanky arse snowball?”

At Dan’s side, Phil chuckled, his eyes sliding open again. This time he pressed his face into the palm of Dan’s hand, filling it with warmth.

“You have, but I like hearing it again. You left out the bit where you broke your nose in the process.” It seemed as though Phil had finally woken up enough to engage.

“And when I went to say sorry to her my nose started gushing blood and I looked like the fucking anti-Christ,” Dan finished the story, hearing Phil stifle another laugh.

“But the next day she asked you if you were okay, and played Pokémon with you. So, it was all worth it.”

Dan must have told Phil this story a few times then.

“It obviously didn’t all go to plan, but I’m glad. I got you, not some girl who thought Pokémon was for kids in primary school.” Phil let out a fake gasp and smiled,

“She will never know what she’s missing out on, with the Pokémon, I mean.”

Phil’s hand now slid outwards, finally beginning to reciprocate the affection Dan had been giving. He quietly poked at the younger boy’s dimpled cheek before smiling and kneading at it teasingly. He used to do this far more when Dan was fresh-faced and young, still in his teens, cheeks round, body slightly too lanky. He had grown into himself, but every now and again Phil would fall into old habits.

He dipped closer, laying a silent peck to Dan’s collarbone, heat spreading, another favourite area of his. It was Phil’s way of promising all his teasing was in good fun. Dan knew this, but still was about to make a snarky comment when a sudden loud thud almost caused him to leap from his skin.  He near took Phil out in the process, the older boy shooting up as well.

“Shit,” Dan gasped, looking about the room to see several items had been knocked off the highest shelf in his childhood bedroom and down onto the old keyboard.

Dan found a crease etching into his brow as he sat up attempting to look about for the cause of the disturbance. Oddly enough, that hadn’t been the first instance of odd occurrences in his and Phil’s life, but they had escalated with the past few months. Phil had blamed it on something supernatural- mostly to tease Dan, who, although didn’t believe in anything even remotely supernatural, had to admit that the idea scared the shit out of him.

“Colin is probably pissed off because we ran out of dog food last night,” Dan supplied a logical explanation. Colin was the family dog, though he was nowhere in sight.  

Phil had simply mumbled a small sound of agreeance and laid himself down onto Dan’s chest, nuzzling contently into his flesh. He felt so warm. He was the sun bottled in the body of a human. Dan always felt so engulfed in the boy’s mere presence and right now he was close enough to burn and it felt so lovely.

For once he felt like he couldn’t get close enough, as though every inch away from Phil was a missed opportunity he needed to grasp. Phil smelled like a Beatles song, all strawberry fields and tangerine trees, it wasn’t typically masculine, but Dan didn’t want it to be. It was Phil, and that was enough.

He wanted the type who didn’t care. Phil was unapologetically himself. That was one of the many illusive allures of Phil Lester. Dan was getting there. He was trying.

“What type of day is today?” Phil asked, moving to look upwards at Dan.

This was a common question. Phil had fallen into the habit of asking. He would wake up with Dan by his side and ask the question, day in, day out. What type of day is it today? The answer varied. This morning felt filled with both promise and sorrow. Dan didn’t know how to explain it.

“I don’t know yet.”

Phil glanced Dan over for a second longer than what was necessary. It was a look of worry. Dan knew it well. Mornings were the worst. They both knew this. If they could just get past the morning and through the night things would be okay. They were in the touch and go time of day. Morning melancholy. Morning mourning. Dan wanted Phil closer, knowing how Pluto must feel to be so far away from the sun. Yet still, they were so close.

Dan went back to tracing Phil’s freckles, not thinking, just being. Time moved around them like waves pulsing around a rock. They did not move, but the sun began to spill into the room. This moment was one for the moon and it was quickly being eclipsed by the harsh light of the day.

“I love you,” Dan found himself uttering, surprising himself.

It wasn’t the first time he had said it. Dan had said it many times, but he wasn’t the type to use this word in excess. Other people, he had been with had struggled to understand this. He wasn't the type to speak his love everyday. He would show it, but hardly ever speaks it.

‘If you say it too much, it loses its meaning,’ Dan had told Phil when the boy had asked.

Unlike the other people Dan had been with, Phil had just accepted this. There was no pressure, no pushing. Phil said he loved the boy more often, but never pressured for this to be reciprocated. He knew Dan said it in other ways. The way he would always listen with keen attention when Phil spoke, even if they were in large crowds like the world began and ended with him, every subtle affectionate touch, even in every teasing jest- there was an ‘I love you’. So, saying it now, out of the blue was almost a cause for concern.

Phil raised his head now, so he could look at Dan, even reaching over to grab his glasses off the bedside table so he could really see him. Dan just looked back impassively, moving back slightly to give him more room to move.

“Why did you say that?” He raised a brow.

“Because I do.”

“I know, but… are you feeling okay?” There was a strange note to his voice that Dan didn’t know how to decipher.

“I’m fine, I just wanted to say it.”     

Phil sat up now, smoothing the wrinkles from his fraying tee-shirt and glanced at the time. The moment was over, the day was in full swing and demanded their attention.

“I love you too,” Phil assured, standing.

“But we better start getting ready, your parent’s will think I’ve kidnapped you.”

Dan found his eyes rolling. It would take some time for them to notice. He knew this because he spent most of his life locked in this room. They wouldn’t notice. He hated being back here. He didn’t vocalise it, but he could feel buried memories pulsing at the back of his head, needing to burst free.

He felt as though a ghost was lingering somewhere in the house. Just out of sight. Not quite out of mind.  When Dan was five, he had wanted to dress up for Halloween. His parents didn’t have enough money for a real costume and so his grandmother had torn up an old set of sheets and made him a ghost.   He didn’t know why, but this was where his mind went.

He had fallen so in love with the costume that he had worn it, nonstop for a month after before his parents finally wrestled him from it, scolding his grandmother for letting him get away with it for as long as she had. By that time, the sheets were stained brown and green at the hems from mud and grass, several new holes were torn into it.

He had never felt more himself than when he was a ghost. He was playing invisible, and yet a small sheet-ghost child was enough of an anomaly that he gained several stares from anyone who saw him, and extra attention from his parents. He was both invisible and seen. He again felt like a sheet-ghost. The haunting phantom of a place he no longer belonged.

Dan now stood, reality slowly coming back to him, the memory fading as quickly as it had come. He looked to Phil in silent agreement and just like that moment was over.

***

“So, you two are… partners then?”

Dan was getting sick of these types of questions. It was only half an hour into the ‘party’ and he had already been asked some variation of this by every distant family member he could hardly recollect having. This question was directed to him by his aunt Agatha, a spindly woman with a nose like the beak of a bird.

Phil had been involuntarily kidnapped by his younger brother to inspect his video game collection. Adrian used Phil as an excuse to get out of family get-togethers just as much as Dan. He couldn’t really blame him. At least the two got along. Most people were just faking polite.

“For lack of a better term,” Dan mused, moving from one foot to the next uncomfortably.

“And what does he do for a living?”

Dan couldn’t fight the exaggerated exhalation which escaped his lips. For fuck’s sake. He was considering texting Phil his ‘emergency’ message. It was one the two had sorted out several years prior. It was to be used whenever the other was in a situation they wanted to get out of quickly but in a subtle manner. He couldn’t quite remember how they had settled on the bloody aubergine emoji as their ‘emergency’ signal.

“It looks so bloody dodgy,” Dan had stated on several occasions to which Phil always would reply,

“Why? When would you ever use an aubergine emoji?”

It was times like that where Dan wasn’t sure if Phil Lester was just altogether too ignorant or innocent to know what he was implying. Then he would remember that he knew Phil and it was more than likely his way of taking the piss.

He was about to open his phone when he found familiar arms flung around his body. They were tan and wrinkled like old leather, smelling of lavender. He smiled slightly.

“I was wondering when I was going to run into you, dear, I got caught up with some fuddy-duddies,” Dan’s grandmother chirped.

He pretended to be embarrassed, being a man in his mid-twenties it seemed like the natural response, but honestly, he didn’t mind. He knew that his grandmother held about the same level of disdain for most of the people at the party as he did, even if she was slightly politer about it. When she let him go he responded,

“Yeah, there are a few of them about.”

“And what about Phil? I haven’t seen him around anywhere. I saw him online saying he needed a few new clothes. I bought a few things for him to say thank you, for keeping you out of trouble.”

Dan was scarlet and looking at the hole he had been worrying away at in the tips of his shoes. It felt strange having someone there who was not only keeping tabs on him but Phil. He also felt the same kind of subtle embarrassment one got when they knew they couldn’t refuse a proposition no matter how much they might want to. It was the reason he had a draw dedicated entirely to the twenty-seven Christmas jumpers, his grandmother had given both himself and Phil over the years.

“I think Adrian is using him as a scapegoat so he doesn’t have to be out here socialising with the rest of the family.”

“Smart boy,” His grandmother commented causing Dan to chuckle quietly.

Dan opened his mouth to speak, whatever words he had planned on saying died in his throat as he caught sight of something particular. It was there one moment, gone the next. It was so fleeting Dan questioned if he had really seen it in the first place.

A moving mass of sheet, no more than four feet in height. It passed through the crowd like a phantom, quietly ducking past guests, weaving through the sea of familiar faces. The thing was both familiar and foreign. He had entered the uncanny valley. Dan’s mouth hung slack-jawed and agape until there was a grounding touch at his side. Phil.

“I figured you would need me if I was gone for much longer,” He noted and shot a smile at Dan’s grandmother, who instantly pulled him into a tight hug that would even rival the one she given Dan.

“Hello love,” She had chirped, striking up a conversation with Phil about clothes and beginning a strange tangent Dan couldn’t quite follow.

He was still looking about for the mass of pale white sheet. He couldn’t see it anywhere. Maybe it was the stress getting to him. Maybe he needed to sleep more. Fuck that was strange. Again, Phil’s hand met Dan’s hip. He wasn’t the type to touch in public, even when they were only around friends or family unless he thought something was wrong.

They had a quiet conversation with their eyes, Phil asking what was wrong- repeatedly. Dan denying anything was- repeatedly. They kept up their public demeanour until they could find a time and place to slip away from the party into the upstairs hallway.

Once there Dan let out a shaky sigh, reclining back against the wall, his feet eventually sinking under him until he was sitting, long legs sprawled out across the width of the hallway. On the opposing wall, Phil follows suit, his legs bumping against Dan’s in the process.

Dan wondered how many parties they had spent like this, how many functions and get-togethers were spent sprawled in hallways, locked in bathrooms, chatting in quiet corners. They both could only deal with so much. Despite how Phil might appear, he was almost as bad, if not worse than Dan when it came to parties. They were dwellers of quiet spaces. Phantoms in their own right.

At the end of the hallway, Dan swore he saw the door to his room shut, the quiet thud echoing through the hallway. Probably some aunt and uncle, hoping for a quick shag to shake away the boredom. Dan would have to wash his sheets before he and Phil slept in them again.

“You having fun?” Dan asked sarcastically, his hand moving to rub Phil’s shin absentmindedly.

“Your grandmother gave me a few shirts that weren’t half bad and Adrien and me get along pretty well.” Phil always looked on the bright side.

“Adrien and I,” Dan corrected in a half-hearted, snarky manner.

Phil tapped on Dan’s leg in false annoyance before he too let his hand rest on Dan’s leg.

“Plus,” Phil continued.

“I only had to explain we were dating twice. Last time I had to explain it six times.” Dan chuckled at that and shook his head.

“I fucking hate it. Even when they try to fake polite, they fuck it up.”

Dan thought of one of his cousins looking at him quizzically when he had told her the person he brought along was his ‘partner’. The word ‘partner’, Dan had learned, went down more smoothly than ‘boyfriend’. Whenever he would use the latter people would look as though he had just decided to suddenly strip down to his boxers in the middle of a party. It was a look of half shocked surprise and disgust.

Not everyone would react this way, of course. Back in London, almost no one would bat an eye, it was more commonplace. People who were younger as well seemed to care far less.

But being stuck in a room with mostly older people from small towns always brought out the worst.

He remembered the way his cousin had fumbled for words, that shock staying glued to her face until she had finally uttered,

“Oh, I didn’t know you were gay. I remember you always liking girls when we were little.”

Another little dagger plunged into his chest. He didn’t want to have to explain that just because he liked boys didn’t necessarily mean he also didn’t like girls. Topics like this worn him down. So, at the time he had simply shrugged his shoulders and looked for the nearest exit.

“At least they are trying,” Phil said in the present day, shaking Dan from his thoughts.

“I suppose,” Dan whispered, moving so that he was now leaning against the same wall as Phil.

He sighed deeply, sick of talking, sick of being there, sick of being.

He stopped himself there, reminding himself quietly that he was having what his therapist called an intrusive thought. Whenever he had them, he was meant to remind himself that it was simply just that, a thought. There had been some metaphor about him being a rock in a stream and his thoughts being the water. He could acknowledge he was having one of these thoughts, but it didn't mean these thoughts were true. He was meant to challenge them. So, for the sake of his mental health he did.

Logically, though today was shit. Today was one day in the rest of his life. He was still sitting beside his best friend, still able to go home to their flat and friends in London in a few days. Have their little lives which, in a lot of ways, Dan thought of as perfect, or as close to it as he was ever going to get. He could still go for a dog.

“If we could get a dog, what type would you want?” He asked Phil quietly.

Phil knew this was Dan’s go-to topic when he was feeling uncomfortable, so the boy was more than happy to oblige, going on a tangent of the many odd breeds of dogs he had seen through late night ventures through Google. Dan loved Shiba Inus while Phil loved corgis. It was only logical that their dream dog should be a cross between the two- which Phil assured him existed. They spent the better part of a half an hour on the floor looking through images of them.

Their small bubble of reality was fractured when his brothers head peeked up from the stairway. At catching the two he simply rolled his eyes and leaned against the bannister. Dan liked this, his brother’s indifference. It was a strange thing to say but, it was true. Others would always act with an element of otherness, towards the two of them. His brother, on the other hand, would get just as snarky and frustrated at catching them together as he had when Dan had dated girls back in high school. Consistency was surprisingly comforting.

“We’re doing the cake and shit so mum said you two better get your arses downstairs. Grandma said, make sure you’re decent.”

Dan screwed up his nose at his brother and scoffed.

“She fucking didn’t,” He called his brother out. The younger boy only smirked, flashing the boys a mock salute and rushing downstairs.

Dan looked back to Phil, who only gave a slightly bemused shrug and stood, extending a hand to help Dan back up. Back into the line of fire, Dan couldn’t help but think pessimistically.

***

**October 2 nd  **

Daniel James Howell was sitting in his metaphorical reverse submarine, his bathtub. He had been left alone to think, something which almost always was a cause of concern. On the rare occasion, he would find an idea for a YouTube video, that would form from times like this, but for the most part, he had just fallen into his spiral of bathtub rumination.

His knees were tucked to his chest to make room for the mound of pale white sheets that sat in the tub opposite to him. The white sheets floated to the top of the water like seafoam. Dan’s eyes locked silently with the childlike brown eyes of the sheet ghost. He was waiting for it to blink, it was almost daring him to do the same.

What he felt wasn’t horror, when looking at the eyes of this barely there thing. Dan simply felt like he was facing something from another time, something or someone that he once knew very well. There was a pit in his stomach, a void, itching to be filled while he looked at this strange unblinking thing. While looking at the sheet ghost thing it felt completely normal. Like a dream. A dreamer never saw the flaws of a dream until he was awake. 

The tap kept dripping. Every few seconds another small patter would sound. Dan had started counting them, two seconds, three seconds, four- drip. Four seconds, five seconds, drip. The phantom didn’t blink. There were footsteps going about the apartment, then the sound of the bathroom door opening.

Dan finally looked away from the creature, turning to face the door, seeing the flushed face of a slightly freckled Phil Lester. Phil’s face once wrinkled from a smile turned to a cold crease at seeing Dan.

“What’s happened?” He asked shrugging out of his jacket in the dim light.

 “What makes you think something’s happened?” Dan questioned, his voice sounding distant in his own ears. Wrong.

“You only take baths when something’s happened.”

Phil wriggled from his shirt and began fiddling with the zip on his pants. It was a common occurrence for the two to strip in front of one another. It had taken them some time but they had grown comfortable with one another.

“Point taken,” Dan breathed, for a moment looking over to the opposite side of the tub again.

There was only a white tiled wall, tiny droplets of condensation and steam clinging to it. It was gone, for now, he could breathe again.

“Mum called, she wants me to come home. They are throwing a birthday party for my grandmother, I think I’m going to have to go.”

Phil is naked now, moving into the bath where the phantom once sat. The moment he drops one leg into the water he recoils, jaw clenched.

“How long have you been in there?”

“What time is it?” There’s that worried look, Dan knows it too well. He hasn’t seen it in a while. Things have been getting better.

“Two in the morning.”

Phil had been out with some friends from university. Dan had been invited, but he managed to wrestle his way out of the situation. They were Phil’s friends after all, not his.  Maybe he wasn’t getting better. That was the thing about depression. You thought you were getting better, becoming normal. He was just aiming to feel normal and some days he felt as though he was there, other times he couldn’t help but feel like it was unachievable. Normal wasn’t ever going to happen. At times like that, he would try and remind himself he had someone who loved him anyway, and maybe if he could learn to love himself half as much he might be okay.

He could feel his thoughts beginning to spiral as he caught his own problematic thinking. He had to remind himself that having poor mental health, didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t normal. Despite what if felt like. Other people seemed so put together, but in the same breath, from the outside, he was very good at appearing altogether. It was only because he lived inside his head that he knew how strange it could get in there. Phil got glances but never the full, unfiltered truth. No one should have to bear that weight on their own.

His mental health was as much a part of him as his sexuality or the language he spoke. It was both an innate part of him, and not all that he was. It was a piece of his puzzle. He needed to get used to seeing it like that, opposed to something totally ‘other’. If he didn’t accept it as it was, how was he ever going to strive to make it better? He needed to think of it as a part of him, not something happening to him, because if it was a part of him, then he could work to make it better. If it was simply something happening to him, then it was out of his control and he wasn’t dealing with that bullshit. Phil was still looking at him, expecting an answer. He had gotten lost in his head again.

“I…” He got in the bathtub a little after eleven.

“Three hours.”

His fingers were pale and shrivelling in on themselves. Pale, peach, prunes. He wasn’t getting better, was he? This time Phil’s face gave nothing away. He simply hummed in quiet understanding, not mentioning how odd this was. Dan was quietly thankful.  

Phil drained some of the cold water from the tub, replacing it with hot water and pouring in some of his shampoo as a makeshift bubble bath. Dan was hit by a wave of fruity, floral daydream. It was only when the warmth seeped over to Dan’s side of the tub that he realised how cold he had been.

“How was your night?” Dan asked trying to make normal conversation, this caused Phil to smile. He had one of his strange stories dancing on the tip of his tongue, Dan could feel it.

“There was this lad,” Dan felt himself bristle at the statement while Phil leaned forward, grabbing his knee in quiet assurance.

“Like a bro… lad… dude, you know?” Dan wasn’t jealous. He swore it.

It was fine if Phil hung out with other people. It was fine if Phil talked to other guys. Dan would give him freedom. He wouldn’t strangle him under constant rules and litigation. It wasn’t healthy. Dan would let Phil be Phil. Even if his whole body was pulsing with a nervous and jittering tremor. 

The shampoo bottle, which had been perched precariously on the side of the tub, tumbled over into the water, with a slight jarring force. The swiftness of the motion caused Dan to jump slightly. Phil tried to save it from spilling, though by the time he pulled it from the water only the dregs were left.

“The more bubbles, the better anyway,” Phil commented before getting back into his story.

“Anyway, I ended up talking to him, because one of my friends went to the loo and he was pretty drunk.” Drunk strangers and Phil Lester were opposing magnets. Maybe Dan should have gone out that night after all.

Dan looked to the corner of the room, seeing the pale white sheets were standing there, just looking. Phil wasn’t reacting, though he never did. Dan tried to pretend he didn’t see it either, though his mind kept drawing him back to the thing. He needed to stop thinking about it, needed to just pay attention to what Phil was saying. He had missed a large chunk of the conversation by the time he was able to focus again.

“So, he started talking to me about proper ‘bloke’ stuff. Going to the gym and whatever. I told him the only time I went to the gym this year I projectile vomited, several times and flipped a few tires and he started going on about this weird fitness thing that… I don’t know monks in Tibet or something do. Not proper monks though but… From what I gather, they are like the dudes who claim to be Arabian princes on the internet or whatever… anyway.”

Phil had the habit of getting side-tracked whenever he would tell a story. Dan never minded. He liked the way his stories bounced from one place to the next, he like the way he spoke. It just captivated him.

“They have this idea that exercising until you throw up is the new way of finding inner peace or something, so this guy was convinced I should go trekking with him to some mountain. He was really drunk- and really strong. So, I gave him the number for Domino’s and told him it was my number, and he could call whenever he wanted to get enlightened… or whatever.”    

Dan stifled a little laugh, trying to picture both the look on the man’s face when he dialled a pizza place looking for enlightenment and the idea of Phil Lester trekking anywhere. The laugh seemed to shake something inside of him loose. Get him out of his head for a moment.

“You’re bloody hopeless Phil Lester.”

The comment only seemed to rile Phil up more, the boy splashed water both at Dan and over their bathroom tiles. Dan splashed him back, acting slightly over-enthusiasticly, sending water skipping all about the bathroom, coating Phil’s stripped clothes and their towels. The sheet ghost soaked through to near transparency and faded. Dan didn’t care about it in that moment. He had woken from the dream. Phil sent a two-handed tsunami his way. Water pounded against his skin, stinging and waking him.

“You little shit,” Dan quipped, latching onto Phil’s ankle and giving it a quick tug, yanking it from under him, sending him flailing into the bathwater.

Phil came out flushed and sputtering, his fringe wet and plastered over his eyes. Dan was in love. He knew this, but in some moments his mind just liked to remind him, to give him a moment of reprieve. Phil Lester was Dan’s holiday from himself. He lurched forward before Phil could retaliate and kissed him roughly. A silent ‘I love you’. Phil’s jaw was slightly scratchy against his own with the ghost of stubble, causing him to gasp out a laugh.

“I hate you,” Phil giggled back.

“I hate you too,” Dan smiled and kissed him back harder, rougher.

For now, everything was right in the world.

***

**October 1 st  **

Night had come again and bled into the ungodly hour. Dan and Phil had been allowed to slip up to Dan’s childhood bedroom around midnight when finally, most of the guests had collected themselves and left. They had been lying side by side for about an hour. Dan wasn’t sure if Phil had fallen asleep, or was just pretending. It was hard to say as of late.

The thing about depression and falling in love is that, no matter what shitty Hollywood films tell you, one doesn’t cancel the other out. They are two different beasts that consume altogether different food and therefore, somehow have learned to live within Dan’s chest in harmony.

Phil tried to help and did help with things but he wasn’t a magic cure. He couldn’t just make things better, couldn’t fix the broken cogs which kept the same stupid memories churning in his head over and over again. Dan was the only one who could do that. Phil was just there to hand Dan the tools if he needed.

Dan knew today was a bad day, as did Phil. So, it was obvious he was trying to stay awake to keep Dan in check. He lasted until about three, that’s when Dan could hear his breath become deep and ragged. He could feel Phil’s breath hot against the back of his neck.

It was then the ghost made its appearance. Standing with wide-eyes and an extended hand, beckoning for Dan to come with it. Logically, he knew he shouldn’t. He should stay in bed and try to sleep. Realistically, he knew it wasn’t going to happen.

He wriggled from under the weight of Phil’s arm and stood to follow the silent spectre out of the room and down the hallway. On the way out of the room, he had grabbed one of their spare blankets, wrapping it around his shoulders, the night was cold and unwelcoming. Gooseflesh prickled over his skin.

He followed the small sheet ghost down the hallway, focusing on the mound of pale white sheets, hardly noticing as the hallway changed around him. When the ghost stopped, Dan noticed. He was in a room. A hallway. A familiar hallway in a very familiar house. The London flat, where he and Phil had lived several years prior. The apartment was stripped down to its bare bones, filled to the brim with boxes and little else. Dan couldn’t be more confused.

The face of a young Phil Lester peeked around from out of the place which Dan knew had been his room. Phil switched on the lights, the sudden brightness an onslaught to Dan’s senses, he squinted into the light using his hand to shield his eyes until they adjusted. Phil was looking through him.

“Dan?” Phil bellowed sounding confused, a younger version of himself emerged from the same room.

“What? I’m trying to put together this fucking Ikea desk-” His younger self began.

Dan felt himself cringe the same way as one often did when looking at photos or videos of a younger version of themself. It was like seeing a ghost, ironically. The phantom of his former self, who was still growing into his skin, hair slightly too long and his curls flat ironed into straight conformity.

“Nothing, I just heard- something,” Phil uttered under his breath before shaking his head.

Dan remembered this. He remembered moving into this flat, just after the two of them had left Manchester. He had been halfway through screwing in a desk leg when Phil had called him out. He remembered finding it endearing at the time, though he never said it aloud. Phil had called him to help deal with the things that went bump in the night. It wasn’t much, but at the time it had felt like a step in the right direction. They had been fighting back in those days, Dan recalled bleakly. Now he wished he said half the things he thought.  Maybe then they would have fixed things quicker.

“It’s an old house,” Dan, the older self, the true phantom, spoke into the air, knowing neither of the boys could hear him.

He was a ghost in this scene. His past self spoke shortly after.

“It’s an old house, it creaks. Come on, I need your help.”

Dan watched himself tap Phil’s side and gently tug him back into the room, turning off the lights and again leaving him in the dark. He had been equal parts in love and scared back in those days. Now Dan was just standing in a darkened corridor. 

This was in the worst of days, the times where he would spend hours out, walking about the streets of London, thinking. His insides had been tearing him apart. Sometimes he wondered how Phil had stayed with him at this time.

He could hear the mumble of their voices through the thin walls. He wanted to grab himself, shake life into him, make him realise that if he could only get out of his own fucking head for two seconds, then maybe things would start to get better. He had been slipping and Phil, in trying to understand what was going on, had been crawling further and further down his own rabbit hole. They fought, most days back then.

“Can you pass that to me?” Dan could hear his own voice, muffled from the wall between him and his memory. He knew what was coming. He wanted to leave, now.

“Wait, look at this-” Phil had uttered, his tone light and joking. Even now Dan couldn’t remember what he had been doing, but he knew at the time it had pissed him off- or really, Dan had already been pissed off, mostly at himself for one reason or the next, the civil war of himself had been raging then. He liked to think that now, he was in a state of peacetime.

“Can you stop fucking about and just give it to me?” Dan’s younger voice cut sharp and unflinching. The present Dan cringed while the ghost was simply a quiet observer, lurking behind the present Dan.

“Can we just have a conversation without you yelling at me?” Phil’s voice sounded hurt. Dan needed to leave.

There were some places Phil couldn’t follow. This was a reminder of that.

“I want to go back now,” Dan spoke aloud, the phantom, who had been lurking behind him at the other end of the hallway simply began walking again.

Dan followed it, watching the night turn to morning around him as he returned to the hallway of his childhood home, opening the door to his bedroom. There he saw Phil, sitting upright, eyes hollowed. 

“I woke up and you weren’t here,” He breathed, reaching for his glasses.

“I couldn’t sleep, I went out for a walk.”

Silence. It lasted for a beat too long.

“You could have woke me up,” Phil sounded hurt.

“Then we would both be tired.”

“Then I could have helped you go back to sleep.”

Phil’s voice sounded like it did in those days. Back at the beginning of the London flat. Like a fight was balanced on the tip of his tongue and the wrong words might send it tumbling out.

“I would have just kept you up.”

“I wouldn’t have minded.”

They are raising their voices. This is stupid. Dan leaned against the door frame, scrubbing his eyes roughly, feeling as though things were falling back into old habits.

“I would have,” Dan whispered back.

He was always loud, whether stating an opinion or playing a videogame. That was his personality. Quiet was dangerous.

“Can you just… tell me what’s bothering you?”

There were more beats of silence. The sun was beginning to rise, sending bleeding rays of red light throughout the room. It was then, Dan noticed the mass of white sheets still standing by the window.

“Folie à deux,” Dan let slip after a while.

“I wouldn’t say that now is the time to listen to Fallout Boy,” Phil whispered, earning the ghost of a smile from Dan.

“You know what I mean,” His voice still felt thin in the air. 

“I just want to know where you go,” Phil compromised.

“You’ll think it’s stupid,” Dan countered.

“Try me.”

Dan knew there wasn’t any use fighting this request, they would just spiral and end up arguing again. Maybe he needed to talk.

“Do you remember when we moved into our old place in London?”

Phil nodded and beckoned him to come back to bed, the two of them crawling under the covers and spreading the thin white fabric over the top of them, linking their ankles together. Phil was warm as the morning sun. He placed one hand on Dan’s cheek, quietly caressing it, leaning over to kiss the full moons blooming under Dan’s eyes.

“I remember,” He commented after a long moment.

Dan took a moment to look at the boy he had grown with, knowing that they would both be strangers to the boys fighting in the London flat. He let Phil’s hands shake the worries loose from his head as his eyes grew attentive.

“I was thinking about what it was like back then. I was so shitty to you… I was…” His breath snagged, worry boring into his skull like a worm into mud.

“I also wasn’t so accommodating,” Phil reasoned before Dan could spiral.

“You didn’t know what was going on.”

“Which is why I want to know what’s going on now.”

Phil had a good point. Dan didn’t admit it, instead, he quietly mumbled,

“I hate you,” Which meant Phil had a point, without saying it.

Phil shot him a small smile, knowing Dan was caving. He fixed his glasses and leaned in closer. The sun shining through the sheets made Phil look even paler. Under the covers, they were in their own little world. It felt safe here.

“I worry because I love you,” Phil uttered, hitting below the belt. Now he was going to feel guilty, but surprisingly he continued speaking before Dan could let the guilt settle.

“And I know you worry because you love me. Before you said ‘folie à deux’ as in me and you, right?”

Dan sunk back slightly and shrugged. With the motion, Phil’s hand fell from Dan’s face but remained frozen in the space between them. Phil seemed to be taking a moment to collect his thoughts, to make sure that whatever he said next meant what he needed it to mean.

“You can’t make me sick any more than I can make you better,” He settled for causing Dan to suck air in through his teeth.

“That’s what you’re worried about isn’t it?”

Dan answered only with silence. Phil didn’t get frustrated. He simply exhaled deeply and placed his hand back down on Dan’s cheek.

“We are going to try to get some more rest, okay? Then we can go home, order pizza and kick the world’s arse at Mario Kart. When you are ready to talk, then we’ll talk.”

It sounded like a good idea. Home sounded lovely, that’s all he had been yearning for ever since he got here. He wanted to go back to London, to sink back into familiarity. He didn’t know what he would do if Phil wasn’t there.

“What if I don’t want to talk about it when we get home?”

Phil shrugged and brushed a curl from Dan’s eyes.

“Then we won’t, we’ll talk whenever.”

This seemed to win Dan over, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment before he let a quiet exhale escape from his slightly parted lips.

“Can we have milkshakes as well?”

Phil chuckled at that, removing his glasses again and settling the both of them down, pulling Dan closer and letting the covers fall over their faces.

‘Yes, we can do that.”

***

**October 31 st **

“Are you putting on the face paint or are we just waiting for your face to decay?”

Dan’s lanky frame leaned against the doorframe to his and Phil’s shared bathroom back in their new London apartment. Phil was perched on the end of their bathtub, trying (and failing) to apply black and white face paint in the shape of a skull.

“I’m trying my best okay? It’s harder than it looks.”

Dan found himself chuckling and moving closer to Phil, sitting down on the ground in front of him having to pry a makeup brush from Phil’s hand.

“Let me give it a go then,” He offered tilting Phil’s head and began attempting to copy a photo Phil had gotten from online.

“What type of day is it today?” Phil asked quietly as Dan quirked a brow.

“I think today is a good day,” He assured and flashed Phil his costume for the night. A mass of pale white sheets.

They had been invited to a Halloween party over at Felix and Marzia’s house. It was somewhat of a tradition. Dan was actually excited at the idea of seeing many of his friends, some of which he hadn’t seen for months.

“It will be nice to see everyone again, plus my costume isn’t half as fucking intricate as yours.” Phil pouted slightly,

“I wanted to put some effort in for once.”

“If it involves too much effort, Danny’s not doing it,” Dan commented with a quiet chuckle, tilting Phil’s face again.

“You’re helping me,” Phil pointed out.

“Only because I would like to get to the party sometime this decade.”

Dan looked over his handy work, tilting Phil’s head from one side to the next before smiling. It wasn’t amazing, but it was far better than he expected he could do.

“How do I look?” Phil asked, pushing his fringe back from his face, white paint already colouring it a sticky grey.

“You always look nice,” Dan found himself admitting honestly before remembering he wasn’t one for sappy comments.

“You know… for a decaying skeleton dude,” He recovered faking a cough, while Phil just beamed brightly at him.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Dan rolled his eyes, placing a hand on Phil’s knee as leverage to help him stand. He watched the older boy follow. They collected their things, keys, wallets, oyster cards, and were soon out the door.

***

The Tube, on Halloween felt like the in-between of this world and the next. There was an odd mix of ghouls, the walking dead and Playboy bunnies as well as the common commuters. Dan sat close to Phil, almost on top of him, as he tried to avoid the elbows of strangers. If he was going to have anyone invading his personal space, Phil would be the ideal candidate.

Dan had donned his sheet ghost attire after Phil had complained that he didn’t want to be the only person dressed up. There were plenty of strangers to prove the contrary, but Dan was already in costume and taking it off now just seemed more embarrassing. At least under his white mass of fabric, he could be anonymous, invisible, a ghost.

Sitting across from the two boys was a group of kids, just before the age of pubescents. They were loud and dripping in fake blood. The smallest of the children, a boy who sat hunched over phone in hand, looking as though he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. One of the boys bumped his shoulder roughly as if attempting to get his attention. He then said something unintelligible from where Dan was sitting, the noise was drowned out by all the other conversations.

The smaller boy flinched visibly, Dan looked over to see if anyone else was paying attention. Phil was. The small boy got up as if to move somewhere, but all other seats were taken so he simply stood, swaying with the train until a different child kicked out at the boy’s feet just as the trained swayed, sending him tumbling.

Both Dan and Phil stood at once, sharing a quick exchange of glances, talking with their eyes. Dan moved to help the boy off the ground while Phil went to talk to the other children. This was the best way they could do it, as Dan had no problem with yelling at kids if they were prats- which wasn’t altogether socially acceptable, and Phil wasn’t the best under pressure if someone was hurt or stressed. Dan kneeled next to the wide-eyed boy, the scared brown eyes of a wild animal looked back up at him.

“Hey, are you alright? You can take our seats if you want, those kids are…” Dan tried to work out something to say that was socially appropriate.

“Chavy prats,” The kid filled in causing Dan to chuckle.

“Well- yeah.”

The child scrubbed his eyes, squared his shoulders and stopped his lip from trembling in a matter of moments. Dan knew this quiet composition from his own childhood. He felt his face soften as he offered the boy a hand up. After a long moment, the boy took it.

“Forget about them, yeah? They don’t matter, not in the long run,” Dan tried to offer some words of advice, but the boy shrugged him off, shoulder’s slumping as he took a seat where Dan and Phil had once been sitting.

“Whatever,” He uttered dismissively and turned to look out the window, falling silent.

Dan took the hint and moved to meet Phil in the middle of the carriage. It was crowded, so much so Dan felt as though the carriage was slowly folding in on itself, the world shrinking. Dan could read Phil’s look of discomfort even when painted over and knew he was feeling the same.

“Maybe we should try to find another carriage, it might be less crowded,” Dan offered.

Phil was quick to oblige, his hand gripping at the white sheets covering Dan’s frame. It was crowded and he didn’t want to get lost in the sea of dead-eyed commuters, ghastly ghouls and scantily clad creatures. They shoved their way through the crowd feeling them ebb and flow like the sea. Phil held onto him tighter as they swayed.

Dan was caught in a memory. Wandering almost aimlessly. He was split into two worlds. He was in his mid-twenties, tugging Phil through a sea of people and on the cusp of pubescence, running across rolling English hills, through slosh and bog, running from a pack of children. In both worlds, it was Halloween. In both worlds, he was dressed in pale white sheets. Phil could tell he wasn’t all there by the way his direction had no rhyme or reason, and his breath- how it caught.

“Where are you?” Phil questioned gently into Dan’s ear.

“Somewhere you can’t go.”

“Try me.”

Dan closed his eyes for a moment, still pushing through the surging crowd from one train compartment to the next, all the while finding himself running faster through fields and hills of slosh and bog. This time, though, he realised that he wasn’t running on his own. There was something in his mind telling him that he should be alone. That’s how it went in his memory, but this time Phil is by his side. He was caught in two worlds, but he knew that, at seeing Phil, he could control both.

“When I was younger…” Dan begins as they move to the next carriage, the crowd thinning slightly.

“It just reminded me of something,” He didn’t know how to put it into words.

Phil grabbed his hand, without saying a word. The two found another seat. Beyond the paint, Phil’s face was set delicately into a look of concentration. He wanted Dan to let him in, so Dan acted as the sheet ghost, which came for him at nights, leading Phil into the scene. He shut his eyes, remembering and repeating where his mind was taking him.

He was young, and he was running. There was a pack of boys at his heels. He was tripping over himself and uneven ground. He wasn’t a ghost yet. He was still a boy. A black and blue boy. Confused. He couldn't fathom at the time, nor now why he was a constant target for the other boys of the town. Maybe it had something to do with the way he talked, the clothes he wore, the odd things he liked. Even now he couldn’t pinpoint an exact motivation.

He was the passive observer of this scene. A ghost watching in quiet awe. Phil was aiming to prove he could also be a ghost, untouched by the scene. Maybe, for just this once he could be. Halloween, after all, was the day spirits walked the earth. Dan thought it was bullshit, but he liked to entertain the idea, in the very back of his mind. That meant there was hope. For what, he still wasn’t sure.

“They were kids,” Phil uttered beside him, in a matter-of-fact manner.

“They likely didn’t know better and if I’m guessing right, had it far worse at home.”

It was as though he read Dan’s mind. He simply nodded, letting his eyes slide open again. He was back to the train, back to Halloween, to the commuters, to the ghouls. To Phil Lester’s skeletal hand through his fingers and the thin white sheets of his poor attempt of a ghost costume. 

As an adult, Dan knew everything Phil was saying was true, but the lingering feelings of his childhood trauma still stung. He shook it off, looking to Phil. Dan recalled Phil saying that he couldn’t make Phil depressed any more than Phil could fix his depression. At the time, he had thought Phil was right, but now Dan considered this statement to be false. Phil could make him better, not on his own, but if Dan was just willing to let him try, then maybe he could help.

Dan had to stop seeing the scared little child, running about through late nights and early mornings as a phantom and realise that he and it, were one and the same. He didn’t have to be led around by the creature, nor did he have to hide it away from Phil as if it were a gruesome secret. The small boy, running about in mud-soaked, grass-stained bedsheets, was as much a part of him as his sexuality or the language he spoke. It was both an innate part of him, and not all that he was. It was a piece of his puzzle.

It was a puzzle Phil Lester was constantly trying to piece together, and in that moment Dan was willing to hand over another piece of the puzzle, finding stories, dancing from the tip of his tongue as they sat on the train, riding it far past their stop and back again, just speaking, forgetting the party. They were dwellers of quiet spaces. Phantoms in their own right.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an odd little idea I have had in my head for a while, that I just couldn't shake. I wanted to write something that dealt with depression, but also something that was poetic and based around Halloween. It was a labour of love and several times I considered scrapping it, just because I didn't know if anyone would want to read something like this. There are lots of metaphors (it's the type of work where the curtains being blue actually means something- infuriating I know) and I wasn't sure if that was something anyone wanted, but I wrote it anyway so I would love to hear what you thought of it, all kudos, questions, comments and constructive criticisms are loved and welcomed. Thank you for reading.


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